Charities Find Themselves on the Losing End in Las Vegas

When it came to charity, this town used to be a soft touch.

Mobster Morris “Moe” B. Dalitz, who chaired the local United Way campaign back in the early 1970s, once showed up on the last day of a fund-raising drive with a bag of cash to help put the charity over the top.

How times have changed.

For a handful of reasons--including a burgeoning-but-unrooted population and casino executives who don’t appear to be pulling their philanthropic weight--fund-raising in this town is something of a crapshoot.

“If this were the 1960s and we were in Akron, Ohio, the tire industry would be spending a lot more in the community than gaming is doing here,” said local United Way President Garth Winkler, who has been raising money in Las Vegas for 16 years. “Most charitable organizations in our community don’t feel gaming is doing its fair share.”

On Wednesday, however, Station Casinos--which operates eight suburban casinos favored by residents--announced it would donate $1.2 million to community causes, including funding a media campaign to promote the presence and needs of local charities.

One purpose of the campaign, said Station executive Lesley Pittman, was to challenge other Las Vegas businesses to be more giving.

Giving Usually Not on Casinos’ Agenda

“I don’t want to identify one industry as not doing enough, but our position is, we can’t do this alone. We need to encourage everyone to get more involved,” Pittman said. “We’ve had tremendous economic growth in southern Nevada, but the needs have increased too.”

Charity officials agree.

“There’s not the level of corporate financial support here that I’m familiar with in other cities,” said Cathy Tisdale, executive director of the local chapter of the American Red Cross. “In comparison to the rest of the country, we lag behind.”

Added the president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas, which provides services for thousands of children of casino employees: “We have received zero major gifts from the casinos.”

Only about 18% of donations to the United Way, the largest charity in this casino-dominated town, come from corporate giving, compared to the national average of more than 22%, Winkler said.

A survey scheduled to be released next month by the Business Community Investment Council--a group of 50 corporate and foundation executives organized to promote greater philanthropy in Las Vegas--shows that “the gaming industry’s level of philanthropic involvement . . . seems to be low compared to other [local] industries,” said founder Robyn Clayton.

Researchers found that “a lot of Las Vegas companies--casinos included--don’t even have a giving budget,” Clayton said.

Bill Bible, president of the Nevada Resort Assn., a casino trade organization, challenged criticism of the industry. But he did acknowledge that, when casino executives meet as a group, industrywide philanthropy is not on the agenda.

“It’s probably true,” he said, “that most charitable organizations think we should be doing more. That’s a natural reaction from people who solicit money.”

Corporate charity is deemed all the more critical here because many Las Vegas residents--half of whom have lived here 10 years or fewer--don’t yet have an emotional attachment to the city.

“There’s a lot of wealth here,” Winkler said, “and we believe the community has the potential of contributing $30 million [annually] to the United Way.” The umbrella organization, which distributes its funds to individual charities, raised $13.2 million last year here, he said.

“There’s still a sense of community being formed here,” Winkler added. “Las Vegas has a transient mentality. It’s a place for visitors, and its history is as a stopping point for people who move on.

“That’s why people don’t vote, don’t register their cars, don’t give blood and don’t know their neighbors. We’re all from somewhere else. We’re still trying to instill a sense of community, and a culture of giving to local charities.”

Alan Feldman, an MGM Mirage Inc. vice president who also is on the directors’ board of the local public radio and television stations, said: “It’s amazing to me how many people send contributions to the public stations in the cities where they lived, but are not members of our local stations.”

Feldman’s employer is considered one of the more generous in Las Vegas, directly giving more than $2 million this year to local charities, primarily the United Way.

Through casino-sponsored campaigns, including car giveaways to employees, MGM Mirage workers contributed another $2 million to the United Way, Feldman said.

Charities Developing Niche Targets

Gina Polovina of the Boyd Gaming Corp., another respected contributor to local charities, said that in the old days, charity executives simply would approach the casinos’ owners and lean on them for help.

“This town used to be very paternal,” Tisdale said. “We all had our short list of angels, people who could either write us a check or pick up the phone and call up two or three friends to take care of us.”

Corporate giving, Polovina said, “has gotten a bit more structured than it used to be, partly because now we’re a public company and we’ve had to develop an actual giving policy.”

Smart charities, she said, should develop niche targets for fund-raising--companies that are not already being exploited by other charities in town.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas is pursuing that strategy now. The organization serves about 12,500 children at a dozen facilities, including 3,000 children of casino workers, said its president, Debbie Verges.

“So when we go in and ask for money, we give them the list of their employees’ children and say: ‘See, here are your 850 children that we’re serving.’ ”

So far, she said, no casinos have responded with money. “But at least they have our request when they work on next year’s giving budget,” Verges said.

While the days of putting the touch on a casino mogul--or a mobster--for a bag of cash may be endearing lore, something akin to it exists today.

While the American Red Cross has yet to receive a major gift from a casino, one unnamed company offered some significant crumbs:

“They gave us permission to retrieve coins from their water features,” Tisdale said. “So we send down volunteers early in the morning, walking through the water.”

Using shovels with holes to let the water drain, the Red Cross hopes to pick up $75,000 this year in loose change.

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Change in Fund-Raising

United Way in Las Vegas

The amount of money United Way has raised in southern Nevada has increased with the region’s population growth. It’s the largest charity in Las Vegas, with about 82% of its donations from individuals.

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CLARK COUNTY RAISED YEAR POPULATION AMOUNT PER CAPITA 1995 1,036,290 $7,620,000 $7.35 1996 1,115,940 7,818,005 7.00 1997 1,192,200 8,315,738 6.98 1998 1,255,200 9,418,000 7.50 1999 1,343,540 11,200,000 8.34 2000 1,425,723 12,152,244 8.52 2001 (est) 1,500,000 13,500,000 9.00

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States with the highest and lowest charitable deductions

States ranked by taxpayers’ charitable deductions as a percentage of estimated disposable income. For taxpayers with incomes from $75,000 to $100,000, here are the top 5 and bottom 5.

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Highest Deductions

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STATE AVERAGE DONATION 1. Utah $5,340 2. Tennessee 3,654 3. Maryland 2,568 4. Alabama 3,568 5. District of Columbia 2,923 10. California 2,250

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Lowest Deductions

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STATE AVERAGE DONATION 1. Vermont 1,631 2. New Hampshire 1,563 3. Rhode Island 1,673 4. Montana 2,183 5. Wisconsin 1,789 10. Nevada $2,156 U.S. Average $2,364

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Sources: the United Way of Southern Nevada

Sources: The Center for Business and Economic Research, UNLV

Note: Estimated disposable income was calculated by subtracting the average cost of living in each state from taxpayers’ adjusted gross income.